Ahead of Kamala Harris’ address on US efforts to combat Covid in India, her uncle says situation ‘pretty bad’

“Unfortunately, because of the Covid, I cannot have such an elaborate function,” the retired academic said in a Zoom interview on Thursday from his home in New Delhi.

Harris’ uncle says he spoke with the vice president and her husband, Doug Emhoff, for quite a while. To close out the conversation, Harris assured him she’d take care of his daughter “her cousin” who lives in Washington.

“Don’t worry, Uncle. I’ll take care of your daughter. I talk to her quite a lot,” Balachandran recalls Harris telling him in their March conversation.

It was the last time they had a chance to speak. Since then, the coronavirus has raged out of control in India, overwhelming the nation’s healthcare system and killing hundreds of thousands of people.

While the crisis in India has created diplomatic and humanitarian challenges for the Biden administration, for Harris, it is also personal. Her mother was born there, and she’s spoken emotionally throughout her political career about the influence of her many visits to India as a child.

On Friday, she’s set to deliver remarks at a State Department event focused on the effort to combat Covid-19 in India, and she’s expected to express US solidarity with the nation.

Speaking at a fundraiser for the Indian nongovernmental organisation Pratham in 2018, Harris talked about walking hand-in-hand with her grandfather, PV Gopalan, and listening to him speak with friends about the importance of a free and equal democracy.

Villagers hold placards featuring Vice President Kamala Harris in Thulasendrapuram, the hometown of Harris’ maternal grandfather, south of Chennai. (File Photo/AP)

“It was those walks on the beach with my grandfather on Besant Nagar that have had a profound impact on who I am today,” she said.

She spoke often on the campaign trail about her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, a headstrong and resilient woman who bucked tradition and decided to leave India to pursue a career as a scientist at the University of California, Berkeley.

And during her acceptance speech at the 2020 Democratic National Convention, Harris opened her speech with a shout-out to her “chithis” — a Tamil word for aunt. One of those “chithis”, Sarala Gopalan, is a retired obstetrician who lives in Chennai.

As a child, Harris used to visit India every other year. Now all that remains of her extended family there are her aunt and uncle. Another Indian-born aunt lives in Canada.

Balachandran said that while he used to hear about friends of friends getting the virus, now it’s hitting close to home. Those he knows personally or worked with are getting the virus, and some are dying.

“The conditions are pretty bad in India,” he said.

Balachandran considers himself one of the lucky ones, as he’s retired and largely stays home alone, leaving only occasionally for groceries, so that “nobody can infect me other than myself”.

His sister Sarala is the same, he says, and has largely isolated herself in her apartment in Chennai to avoid exposure. Both are fully vaccinated, something he knows is a luxury in India, which has suffered from a severe vaccine shortage.

That shortage is part of what prompted criticism in India of what many saw as an initially lackluster US response to a humanitarian crisis unfolding in the nation over the past month.

The US initially refused to lift a ban on exports of vaccine manufacturing supplies, drawing sharp criticism from some Indian leaders.

When Covid-19 cases in India started to spin out of control in April, there were calls for other countries “particularly the US” to get involved.

While a number of countries, including Germany, Saudi Arabia and even India’s traditional foe Pakistan, offered support and supplies, US leaders were seen as dragging their feet on the issue.

The White House had previously emphasised the USD 1.4 billion in health assistance provided to India to help with pandemic preparedness and said when asked that it was in discussions about offering aid.

The delay in offering further aid was seen as putting a strain on long-standing close diplomatic relations between the two nations, and on April 25, after receiving scrutiny over the US response, a number of top US officials publicly offered further support and supplies to the nation, including a tweet and a call to Prime Minister Narendra Modi from President Joe Biden himself.

Harris’ niece in California, Meena Harris, has retweeted a half-dozen accounts calling for more aid to India, including one from climate activist Greta Thunberg admonishing the global community to “step up and immediately offer assistance”.

Harris’ office declined to comment for this article. The US announced it would lift the export ban on vaccine manufacturing supplies and said it would send personal protective equipment, oxygen supplies, antivirals and other aid to India to help the nation combat the virus.

The administration gets no criticism from SV Ramanan, a temple administrator of the Shri Dharma Sastha Temple in Harris’ grandfather’s hometown Thulasendrapuram in Tamil Nadu.

“Everyone has their priorities. America also passed through something similar and we helped then. Now they are helping us,” he said.

Ramanan said he didn’t expect that having Harris as vice president fast-tracked aid to India or that it somehow meant help should have come earlier.

“I think in general all other countries should help, and I’m glad the US has stepped up,” he added.

He hopes Harris can make a visit to her ancestral village when things are better.